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I really love the design. Those are exactly the kinds of cars I thought we would be riding in by the 21st century, not hulking, boring SUVs. As for being unsafe, if everyone were using them it would be fine. It's the huge mass differential between vehicles which makes smaller vehicles less safe...

You're lucky to have a lifestyle where you can do this. A lot of people are stuck in 9-to-5 jobs for whatever reason, and at most get a week or two off a year. The last time I worked for someone else we didn't even get vacations, either paid or unpaid. You got fired even if you were sick for...

That is definitely a concern because you need to charge at 0.3C or better to get a reliable end-of-charge signal. 300 mA is only 0.15C. That being said, the Eneloops are high quality cells, so the charger might still be able to pick up the slight voltage depression near the end of charge. Also...

Actually it's the left arm. It's counterintuitive because the ball bearings exert torque in the opposite direction a regular bearing would. I installed a sealed bearing bottom bracket adaptor on my other bike in order to get rid of the high-maintenance one-piece crank. I didn't notice that they...

They're faily easy to use once you read the instructions. They're better in that you can find bad cells, or match cells for capacity if you'll be using them together in the same device. I've been capacity testing my cells for years using my own setups, and writing the capacity on the cell with...

Forming means charging the battery at 0.1C for 16 hours. The purpose is to evenly distribute the electrolyte so that the battery has maximum capacity and voltage, and also to restore batteries which are performly poorly. You can read about it in the MH-C9000 instructions. Since the MH-C9000...

I'll agree quality of life is more important than age but nothing worse than working your whole life, then not having much of a retirement because you die fairly young. My uncle was only retired a few years. Because he got sick, they weren't as good years as they could have been. Even my dad...

We were hoping the cancer would go into remission as it had a few years ago. No such luck. My uncle was a heavy smoker, so little doubt that was a strong contibuting factor. My condolences to your friend. 58 is really, really way too young to die. BTW, I said young because in my family...

My uncle (my dad's brother) passed away October 4. I went to the funeral yesterday. He was only 69. Too many people dying young lately, and not just in the family. Ironic that the two brothers died only 18 months apart. Online obituary in case anyone is interested.

I came across this article about a state-of-the-art 1GB hard disk from 1980 recently. This really makes you appreciate today's technology. The first picture comparing the drive to a 1GB flash card is really a hoot. A more apt comparison would have been to compare a 16GB card to the roomful of...

I hate tattoos, piercings, or for that matter even makeup. For what it's worth, most of the under 30 crowd here doesn't have piercing or tattoos (at least where I can see them). Anyway, if I were dating, I'd probably avoid anyone over 30 (just the opposite of you) because I don't want baggage...

100W is actually pretty common here, or at least it's the size we used to buy years ago when we only used incandescent bulbs. True. I think 5% of solar maximum is as high as I would care to go for interior lighting. Just to get around without bumping into things a few tens of lumens is all I...

I think once the Bush administration goes a Kyoto-like protocol is likely to be ratified in the US, regardless of which party goes to the White House. A fair number in Bush's own party are disgusted by his environmental stance. A big reason the first Kyoto protocal wasn't ratified was...

We have quad T8s in the kitchen also (it's 10'x12') and in my bedroom (a little smaller), although I have a 23W CFL which I use most of the time in the bedroom. The T8 fixture causes too much glare on my monitor, so I only use it occasionally. My workroom (7'x11') has about 14,000 lumens and 210...

That's one of my points. Selling light bulbs which last on average 750 hours is big business. So long as that's true, the companies that sell them will spread misinformation and just plain not tell consumers the whole story. Stores will not stock as many more efficient, longer lasting lights...

Same here. I can't be bothered counting minutes. Honestly, most of the time I just guestimate my time. Working on a clock is about as artificial as it gets to me.

Minor point-I'm not referring here to batteries built into low-drain devices which often outlast the useful life of the device. I'm referring solely to the commodity AAAs, AAs, Cs, Ds, and 9Vs sold at retail stores. The heart of the problem is really those who use disposables for high-drain...

I'll look into those as soon as my budget allows. I just spent ~$500 on parts for both my bikes. Neither one was really rideable any more so I had no choice. Are the clipless pedals easy to disengage? I need to stop fairly frequently for lights so that's a requirement.

Nice! It's got a 10-speed rear cluster, integrated brake-shift levers, and a triple crank in front so it can conquer hills as well as flats. Yes, it's amazing how much faster a decent road bike is. I rode my friend's MTB a few times. It was a stuggle to even hit 20 mph, never mind maintaining it...

Maybe the auto workers should do what other workers in well-paid but sporadic industries do-save some of their earnings. They make upwards of $30 an hour in a depressed area where housing is fairly inexpensive. They can and should put aside something for a rainy day. This kind of reminds me of...

You can get them here. $12.73 plus $4.99 shipping for 8 cells. Don't let the refurbished part turn you off. These are brand new cells which for whatever reason were opened and then returned. I bought 3 refurbished 8-packs. No problems at all. Well, they'll go soon enough, and then if you buy...

Yes, but there will be far fewer of them to deal with, perhaps only one rechargeable battery per 500 alkalines. Also, many cities are putting recycling programs in place for rechargeable batteries. In NYC it's already against the law to throw away rechargeables. I'll also mention that the energy...

Since we already have one "should we ban it thread" I figured it's time for another. Now our society makes a whole bunch of other, disposable junk I suppose I could pick on, such as one-use cameras, one-serving prepackaged meals, flashlights with no replaceable battery, etc. However, the one...

People don't mind getting dirty if the pay is high enough. The worst jobs are those where the work in boring and the pay stinks. These call center people are probably getting $2 or $3 an hour, and then to add insult to injury the employer has to monitor every minute. Now that's understandable...

Sunlight is what the human eye is optimized for over millions of years of evolution. Matching sunlight makes a lot more sense than matching an arbitrary type of artificial light like incandescent since it's the benchmark. Besides improving contrast, the colors in the room will more or less look...

I agree that CRI is lacking as a metric, but it is the only widely-adopted one. Gamut area (GA) and full-spectral index (FSI) are both better in many respects, but have yet to be widely used. Well, I hate the CFLs which mimic incandescents with a purple passion, especially the 2700K ones. The...

There's so many angles to this question. For starters, direct screw-in incandescent replacements are a half-assed idea whether they are CFL or LED. While it's true that it allows immediate replacement of an inefficient incandescent without replacing the fixture, the fact is that most...

I have had zero problems with the way my Samsung CLP-510 does color prints. Then again my points of reference were a Deskjet 400C and cheap chain store prints. However, even compared to magazine quality photos my color laser prints are not bad. As far as I'm concerned, color laser is...

Not to mention that type of use is a huge factor. 10,000 miles in NYC is probably more wear and tear than half a million on the highway. If certain vehicles happen to be bought more often in NYC they might have very poor reliability numbers, but that still might not be indicative of inferior...

You can't look at transit systems in isolation and say they're losing money. Rather, I look at the big picture. You build a new rail line. Even if it requires subsidies forever to keep fares low enough you'll have new development along it. The real estate and other taxes from new development...

Even though the price is in the stratosphere, at least SDD capacities are finally the same order of magnitude as magnetic disks. A few more years of Moore's Law should get the price per GB more competitive. Right now 32GB, which seems to be the sweet spot for SSDs, can be had for roughly $400 to...

Groups one and two make up the majority by far. I'd say most people fall into group two. They currently use mostly cars, but would gladly use public transit if it was decent, perhaps even not own a car at all if the public transit was comprehensive enough. Very few people actually like to drive...

Interesting. I noticed the green LED has the greatest improvement by far. This is likely because the best blues are already about 50% efficient, while greens are only around 14%. If we can get the efficiency of greens and reds to the same level as blues are, then a red-green-blue white light...

People can be incented to do just about anything. Let's not forget that public transportation works in places where it's fairly comprehensive. And people will gladly give up their cars in exchange for speed. The popularity of air travel and high-speed rail (where it exists) shows this to be...

5 minute recharge is what makes the whole range issue moot. I might understand a 200 mile range being a problem if a vehicle takes overnight to recharge, but if it can be charged as quickly as filling a gas tank then there is no problem. Also, 99% of trips are under 40 miles. A 200 mile range...

I'll second that, especially with $10 gas in the not too distant future, and the hydrogen economy a big if (IMHO hydrogen fuel cells will never be practical in cars). An ICE or fuel cell just adds needless complexity, and takes up weight which could otherwise be used for a larger battery. 200...

Typo. Should read 107-114 lm @ 350 mA, NOT 107-144. We're not at 144 lumens @ 350 mA quite yet. Probably sometime in 2008.

Forgot to mention, as LEDs get more efficient the heat problem you mentioned becomes less and less. See my thoughts on the subject here.

Look at this thread on CPF. Test results of the Rebel are in post 127. 88 lm/W at 350 mA, and holding above 50 lm/W even at 1.5A. The Q5 bin Cree XR-Es (107-144 lm @ 350 mA), which I have on order, should get into the mid-90s. Release of the R2 bin Crees, which hit 100 lm/W at 350 mA, is...

The significance is that when teaching a homogeneous population there are many common frames of reference, and thus less opportunity for miscommunication or misunderstanding during the teaching process. In a more diverse society, you'll have multiple languages, multiple dialects of the same...

HDL should be >60 and LDL <100. Howell's numbers are quite good. No idea of my HDL or LDL but my BP is usually around 110/65 according to my home BP monitor. Don't feel bad. My last physical was when I started college in 1980. Given the track record doctors have as far as accidentally killing...

My ISP went down Monday. I didn't get it back until today. I can sympathize.

If you think that's bad look at the Second Avenue subway. It was planned since 1920. Actual construction was finally started in 1925, and halted due to finances. It was restarted in earnest in 1972, and then halted again due to the city's financial crisis in the mid 1970s. Now it looks like a...

I too wish I had something deeper to say in honor of your 10000th post but I don't. In your recent absence we could only at best fill-in for you, not replace you. Over the years you've had your ups and downs. You've been a part of the ups and downs of the entire membership. I hope this place has...

Besides the fact that I don't meet your requirements, that would definitely leave me out. I HATE hot weather with a purple passion. 360 days of 25°C or over. Yuck! That means being confined indoors with A/C most of the time. As it is I can't stand the 90 or so days over 25°C that we get here in...

There's actually a good possibility of using carbon-fiber wiring in the not too distant future. The spike in copper prices is driving R&D. I'm not sure if making electric motors for maybe 100 million vehicles would cause all that large of a demand increase for copper. Don't forget how much...

Yep, I'm with you here. The rise in food prices, especially over the last year, has been ridiculous. I was tracking the price of a 17 oz box of Reese's Puffs cereal (one of my favorites until the price broke $2 a box) over the last year. It went from $4.29 (already too pricey for my budget)...

No, not really. I realize there are environmental costs to making those batteries. On balance though, there is far less damage overall than going the current route. OK, and what about the damage caused by drilling for crude oil? Moreover, mining the materials for the batteries is a one-shot...

I'm not debating that biofuels can have some role in reducing the use of imported oil. However, the real kicker is quoted above-they can offset fossil fuel use by perhaps only 30% or so, and even this will take until the year 2030. And even if it's no worse than gas (a point I'm not qualified...

Another vote for increasing the edit time. Sometimes by the time I reread my submitted posts I find an error I didn't catch during preview but can't fix it. I think at least 15 minutes would be sufficient.